


Sweet Desert Sleep

by schweinsty



Category: Star Trek XI
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-29
Updated: 2014-11-29
Packaged: 2018-02-27 09:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2688287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweinsty/pseuds/schweinsty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Pike is heroic, Jim is confused, and fuchsia-feathered flamingos flank fatigued flyboys in the desert.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Desert Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Written for alessandriana on livejournal.
> 
> This is older fic (from 2010). I'm just importing it from my livejournal & it didn't backdate correctly.

“You all right, son?”

Before Jim can process the question, Pike’s head pops into view and blocks the sunlight, for which Jim is pathetically grateful.

“Yeah,” he answers after a second. His lips feel heavy; his mouth doesn’t want to work right. “Jus’ tired. Can I rest a sec?”

Pike shakes his head and says something about a shuttle and the desert creatures. Oh well. At least he didn’t whistle this time.

“Okay,” Jim says. “Jus’ a sec. Lemme get up.”

Pike ‘Mmhmm’s suspiciously and suddenly his head disappears. Jim shuts his eyes and groans as the sunlight rips into his brain. _Right. Getting up. Getting up, in three, two – damn, the desert’s hot. Where was he? Oh, yeah. Getting up. Getting up. Getting-_

“Hey.” Air ruffles his hair and something tugs at his arms, and Jim opens his eyes to find himself standing with his arm slung over Pike’s shoulders. “Wazzat?”

“Come on, kid, it’s just another mile of neutral ground to the shuttle.”

Oh. Right, then. “Yeah. I’m good.”

Pike puts a foot forward and starts walking, and Jim manages to stumble along. He has the vague suspicion that Pike’s holding most of his weight, but that’s okay because Jim’s really, really tired, or at least he thinks he is. He’s not sure; his hands shake and his eyeballs hurt and a dozen pink flamingos suddenly pop up and start flanking him, all of which he knows are symptoms of extreme exhaustion and sleep deprivation, but, really, he doesn’t _feel_ tired. His body doesn’t want to work, is all.

“Stay with me, Kirk, I’m not going to drag your sorry ass back by myself.”

_Right. Right. Walking. Walking with Pike. Walking with Pike and ignoring the flamingos. Hey, wait. That’s weird._

“Thought admirals weren’t supposed to go on rescue missions.”

Pike chuckles. “We’re not.”

Pike chuckles again, and the vibrations of his shoulder jar something in Jim’s stomach and make him feel like that time he did a crash simulation after drinking all those energy drinks and three pints of ice cream and, god, why did he have to think of that? And he gags, but they stopped feeding him everything except the stims several days ago, so there’s nothing to throw up.

Pike waits patiently for Jim to catch his footing again. Jim’s pretty sure Pike’s giving him that piercing ‘I can see deeper than a bone scanner’ look that always makes Jim feel fourteen again. He does that a lot.

“’M good,” Jim mumbles once he gets his bearings back.

Pike doesn’t say anything, but when they set off again, they’re walking slower.

“I thought captains weren’t supposed to trade themselves for hostages.”

“They’re not,” Jim mumbles. Safety of the captain is right behind safety of the ship; and, during hostage negotiations, captains are to stay aboard at all times, unless acting in accordance with article… fifty? – something, one of the sub-sections under there… whatever. “But that’s shtupid. Shtoopid. S-stu-”

“Uh-huh.” Pike’s looking at him weird again, like Bones does whenever he gets shot. “Well, just don’t tell that to the review board and you’ll be fine. Probably.”

Jim almost laughs when Pike mentions the review board, but his throat’s too dry and the laugh gets stuck. Seven months he’s been captain, and already he’s had four run-ins with the review board. Apparently, it’s some kind of-

“Kirk. Hey, open your eyes, son. That’s an order.”

Jim doesn’t realize his eyes are shut until the flicker open, and he realizes he’s lying on his stomach in the sand, Pike kneeling at his side. He isn’t sure if he opened his eyes of his own accord, or if they snapped open thanks to the Pavlovian obedience training at the Academy.

(It could also be that Pike’s voice right then reminds him of Bones’ whenever Bones is really worried about him, except that Bones never sounds nearly so paternal as much as he sounds – but that’s too complicated for Jim to puzzle out now. His head hurts).

“I’m fine,” Jim says, but it comes out sounding more like “Mmm fumf.”

Pike ‘mmhmm’s again with that raised eyebrow – and what is it with all this mmhmming shit anyway? – and gently rolls Jim over. His hands feel rough even over Jim’s shirt, and Pike offers an absent-minded ‘sorry’ as he looks Jim over.

“Can you stand?”

The question comes softly. Soothing. Jim blinks. In some foggy corner of his brain, he understands that his CO just asked him a question and he should probably answer it, but the rest of him is too tired to process it, so he stares at Pike and the sky behind him and lets his eyes drift shut and barely manages to open them again.

It’s not long before he feels Pike’s hand ruffle his hair. “You don’t do things by halves, do you, kid?”

Jim doesn’t have to think about that one, because he spent the last several days of hunger and thirst and isolation trying to distract himself by thinking about it, wondering if there had been anything he could have done to salvage the mission, and it always came back to one thing:

“’F I hadn’t, they’d’ve killed Chekov.” Jim blinks again, and the sky and the sand start spinning again. He thinks his head’s spinning too, and he wets his lips with his tongue and lets his eyes drift shut, just for one second, and lets the hot breeze wash over him.

When he wakes up, the earth and sky are upside down. It takes Jim a minute to realize he’s slung over Pike’s shoulders. It takes him another minute to realize why there’s something wrong with that.

“Your back okay?”

Pike laughs. “Son, we’re going to have a long talk about looking out for yourself as soon as your doctor gets you coherent again.”

“Sweet,” Jim says, because he’s fairly certain he should say something, but he’s too tired and in too much pain to think. He squints as he catches a glimmer of something bright in the distance; it sharpens, slowly, with each step Pike takes, until Jim can make out the shuttle Galileo and the two familiar dark-haired, blue-shirted men running his way, and a flood of relief washes over him because this clusterfuck of a mission is officially over, and there’s nothing left for him to do.

He takes one last look at Bones and Spock and smiles as he shuts his eyes and gives in to the bone-deep weariness. Bones’ll be pissed for a week. Spock probably has notes for the lecture ready. Maybe they collaborated.

“G’night,” Jim mumbles out of habit.

Pike chuckles again. “Get some sleep, Kirk. You’ve earned it.”

And Jim does exactly that.  



End file.
